Documents

Documents are one of the most common ways we share information at UC—syllabi, reports, policies, handouts, forms, and more. These files often get reused, posted in course sites, attached to emails, and shared across departments. When documents are accessible, people can read, search, navigate, and reuse the content with the tools that work best for them. When they are not, some users may be blocked from essential information.

By building accessibility into your documents from the start, you make them easier for everyone to read, update, and repurpose, whether they stay in Word or are later converted to PDF or posted online.

Focus Areas for Accessible Documents

  • Titles & Headings: Use clear, descriptive titles and heading styles to give your document a logical structure. Headings should reflect the hierarchy of your content and help readers (and screen readers) understand how sections relate to each other.
  • Alt Text: Add meaningful alternative text to images, charts, diagrams, and other visuals that convey information. Alt text should explain what is important about the image in the context of your document. Decorative images should be marked as decorative so they can be skipped.
  • Hyperlinks: Turn URLs into descriptive link text so readers know where a link will take them without needing to see the surrounding sentence. Avoid bare URLs and vague labels like “click here.” This is especially important when documents are read with a screen reader or printed.
  • Color Contrast: Ensure that text and important visual elements stand out clearly from the background. Avoid low‑contrast combinations and do not rely on color alone to convey meaning (for example, “items in red are required”). Use color contrast checkers when you choose custom colors for headings, callouts, or tables.
  • Navigation & Order: Organize content so it follows a logical reading order from start to finish. Use the document’s outline or navigation pane to confirm that headings and sections appear in a sensible sequence. When converting to PDF, make sure the reading order still matches the intended flow.
  • Copy Formatting: Format text to support readability: shorter paragraphs, clear spacing, and well‑structured lists for steps or key points. Avoid dense “walls of text,” excessive bold or italics, and inconsistent fonts or spacing. Clean up copied text so it does not bring in awkward or inaccessible formatting from other sources.
  • Captions & Transcripts (for embedded media): If your document includes links to or embeds audio or video, note where captions and transcripts are available and ensure they are easy to find. The document should clearly indicate how users can access text alternatives for any media it references.
  • Technical: Use built‑in tools (styles, lists, table tools, accessibility checkers) rather than manually styling text. When exporting to PDF, start from an accessible source document and follow recommended export settings to preserve structure, tags, and reading order.

Tools to Know

  • Adobe Acrobot
  • Equidox

Sample Use Cases

Before you export, ensure the Word document is accessible: headings are styled correctly, lists use built‑in tools, images have alt text, tables are simple and properly labeled, and link text is descriptive. Run the Accessibility Checker and fix issues it identifies. When you export to PDF, use the option that preserves tags and structure rather than printing to PDF, which often strips out accessibility information. If you need to make adjustments in the PDF, use Acrobat to review tags and reading order.

If possible, try to locate or request the original source file (often a Word document) and improve accessibility there before creating a new PDF. If the source is not available, open the PDF in Acrobat and check whether it has tags and a logical reading order. You may be able to add or correct tags, define heading levels, and add alt text for images. Be aware that scanned PDFs can be especially difficult to remediate; in some cases, creating a new accessible version of the document is more efficient and more accessible.

When you create or update forms in Word or PDF, make sure every field has a clear label and that instructions appear before the fields they relate to. Use tables cautiously and only when they truly help organize the form. Test the form using only the keyboard to ensure you can move through fields in a logical order. If your form is used frequently or posted publicly, consider whether an accessible web form might serve users better than a document‑based form.

For complex tables, simplify the structure where you can, and use clear header rows and columns so readers—and screen readers—can interpret the data. Avoid split or merged cells when possible. For charts and graphs, provide a brief text summary that describes the key trend or takeaway, and ensure the underlying data is available in an accessible form (such as a data table or spreadsheet). This helps users who cannot fully interpret the visual or who use assistive technologies to read data.